[PLUG] Getting a root prompt upon booting

[Derek Loree]

On Mon, 2003-12-01 at 12:25, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   I'm getting my old notebook ready for sale and tried changing the password
> to a give-away. Apparently, my fingers mistyped the new password the same
> way twice: I cannot log in under either the new or old root password.
> 
>   So, I tried booting into single user mode. This is one a Slackware-9.1
> system. At the boot prompt I type 'linux single' or 'linux 1' and it does
> boot into single-user mode, but asks for a login. Sigh.
> 
>   What do I do to just get a root shell that will allow me to change root's
> password? The boot loader on this box is LILO, not grub.

The only way that I know of is to boot the box with an alternative, like
knoppix, and then delete the root password hash from the /etc/shadow
file on the hard-drive.  Don't let the knoppix GUI mount the hard-drive,
it will mount it read-only.  (Of course, the command "mount / -o rw -o
remount" will take care of the problem.)

Good Luck,

Derek Loree